THE TRICKERIES AND ANTICS OF MACC: What I saw today 28 June 2010 in the Jalan Duta Courts
Din Merican
After writing my piece yesterday about the change of Judge in the Trial of Rosli Dahlan, I was determined to be present in court this morning to observe the proceedings. Before that, I decided to check out how this recent development would prejudice Rosli.
Reproduced below is what a fellow blogger and respected counsel, Art Harun said:
First of all, I do not why they are changing the Judge. This is definitely odd. The practice is, when a trial is at an advanced stage, and when countless hours have been spent on a trial, a Judge will not be changed. Even if he is transferred away, he would be asked to continue to preside over the case.
This is because he is the best person to judge the testimony, either to its admissibility or most importantly, to the weight to be given to a piece of testimony (we call it “probative value of the evidence”).
This is because the Judge would have seen and observed the witness and his body language, his temperament, he refusal or willingness to answer a question and if he answers, his demeanor while answering. All these will be in his head. He decides whether to believe a witness and if he believes, how much he would believe that witness based on all those things.Nobody else can do that but him. Because he was there.
If Rozillah (the new judge) takes over, she would have to start de novo (meaning, all over again). Otherwise she would be handicapped because she did not have the opportunity to observe Kevin Morais and the rest of the bumbling clowns who the prosecution is calling “witnesses”.
If she did not start de novo, she would have to rely on the notes taken by the former Judge. That is not good because she would not know the demeanour of the witnesses who were giving evidence. She would not see the sweat that ran down Kevin’s face, nor the awkward smile of whoever who was giving evidence.
So, to borrow the lawyer’s phrase, prima facie, Rosli will suffer a prejudice. The previous judge would know and remember all of Kevin’s lies described in my previous article – “The Liar Kevin Morais Buried In His Lies”, when he delivers his verdict. The new judge would not.
I can now understand why DPP Dzulqarnain and DPP Suffian disrupted the smooth running of the trial on the previous occasions by raising countless objections. I can now understand why DPP Dzulqanain sought to abort the other days reserved for the trial by giving the excuse that he needed to go on holiday to Australia with his whole family, whereas these were dates which he had previously agreed to. I can now understand that these were just tactical maneuvers and delaying tactics to get Judge Abu Bakar Katar to be transferred out.
MACC is scared of the Truth
The MACC must be truly fearful that their seven witnesses including the star witnesses, DPP Kevin Morais and Investigation Officer (IO) Saiful Ezral, have been stripped naked in court as being either inconsistent or outright lying. Either that memory is removed from Judge Abu Bakar Kattar’s mind or better still, transfer the Judge and get a new judge who has no such memory! That, in a nutshell was what all these maneuverings were about throughout the trial.
